Every so often my inability to resist new web apps really pays dividends. Mostly I’ll have a quick play, promise to go back to it and then don’t. Funnily enough this helps me understand a lot about adoption for Front Office Box – new article coming soon.

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We’ve been trying out the Apture.com service via WordPress plugin.

It seems awesome – just give Apture a search term and which type of content we want.  It finds stuff – lets us select and then embeds into WordPress – and it works like a dream.

I was seriously impressed with this – until two of the four sites we have running on the server started returning 500 errors.

As a result of some pretty poor service from our hosting provider we ended up with our main marketing site off line for six hours – luckily it was Saturday afternoon when anybody sensible is having fun, not searching blogs. But eventually we got told the problem was the combination of our sites was running out of memory.

Putting together the time we started having problems with the time we installed Apture it was easy to see that was causing the problem.  (We should have thought about that earlier, except the sites with Apture were running fine – it was two of the others were having problems)>

Anyway Apture is great, but that great enough for me to rent more memory.

Nice thought but no deal Apture.

Probably like most who’ve traveled a lot I have a deepfelt resentment of the way airlines treat people. Sometimes this is mildly assuaged when we catch an upgrade from BA, but generally the drive to low cost has left all of them in the “crap” category when it comes to customer service.

For that reason it gives me a special pleasure to report an unusual experience.

Having checked in online for last nights Aer Lingus 397 from Vilnius to Dublin, we arrived at the gate to be told our seat allocation had been changed. The service agent offered no explanation, simply suggesting we write to the airline with any complaint.

Whenever this has happened in the past complaints to the crew have always resulted in the same disappointment. They always say “take the seats you have now and we’ll sort it out when everybody has boarded”. Of course they never do.

Last night it was a different story. I think the lady’s name is Michela Maloney (hopefully I’ll be forgiven for any misspelling). Michela is an absolute jewel when it comes to customer service.

No fuss, professional, sympathetic she explained there must have been a problem with children originally allocated exit row seats and subsequently moved to ours. She asked a crew member to check out the situation – we should just wait at the front.

Within a few minutes her colleague led us to a pair of seats in the exit row.

As a result we got better seats than originally allocated, and Aer Lingus gets the 5 Star Customer Service award.

It’s often said that something going wrong is an opportunity to prove quality customer service, and this case is a perfect example.

Now the real icing on the cake will appear if Aer Lingus is monitoring Twitter and picks this up.

I wonder? Hey guys give me a shout if you do. It will be nice to know one big brand is actually listening.

Jonathan Stewart at Integrity Toner offers the best deals on the web for printer consumables.

He tells me there’s a special discount for Front Office Box users so give him a try next time you need toner.

When Alfred Huynen was preparing to open a new dental practice he was forced to rip up the rulebook on marketing. Instead of advertising the service that he intended to provide, he concealed it, fearing that his acceptance of NHS patients would prompt huge queues.Mr Huynen’s practice in Cove, Aberdeen, opened three weeks ago, spurning private patients in favour of those who are subsidised by the health service. During the five months that it took to build the surgery he kept the function of the building secret in an attempt to prevent long queues from forming outside. He even let some neighbouring businesses think that it was a takeaway. Now that word has leaked out, the practice has registered 3,000 people in three weeks.

Scots have long had a problem with accessing NHS dentists as practitioners often choose to go private instead of carrying out less lucrative health service work. The SNP government has worked hard to address the shortage by boosting the salary of NHS dentists, who can now earn up to £65,000. The poor provision means that surgeries who accept health service patients can look forward to lots of work.

Mr Huynen, an accountant originally from Belgium, said: “There’s not big money to be made on the NHS but it is a steady income. The massive waiting list shows there is a big market out there for an NHS surgery.”

His practice has four Portuguese dentists and a fifth will start work next week. He hopes to take on 10,000 patients over the next year.

Mr Huynen said that people were travelling hundreds of miles because they were so desperate for an NHS dentist. “I can’t believe the distances people are coming from,” he said.

“The phone starts ringing at about 8am and it doesn’t stop. It’s great to be able to offer them a service. I didn’t want people queueing up outside the surgery at five in the morning. I don’t think they should have to go through that to see a dentist. They shouldn’t have to wait in line.”

How Cool Is This?

An accountant from Belgium opens a new surgery with four Portugese dentists and registers 3,000 patients in three weeks and expects to have 10,000 in a year.

Now if he’s as bright as I think he is he’ll do a bunch of other stuff there, particularly the other stuff the NHS finds difficult e.g CBT and before long he’ll have his own multi clinic.

I’m definitely in the wrong business.

Posted via web from stevensreeves

Posted via web from stevensreeves

This is really quite special and something every entrepreneur should take a look at.

I’m not sure about you, but I get tired paying those outrageous fees to lawyers, accountants, consultants etc.

Now we have a choice.  We can join this new service and get support from on-line consultants for a fraction of the cost we’d pay those guys downtown.

Founder Maria Tango explains the new service:

“Our purpose is to assist those with business ideas, startups and small business owners start, run and constantly improve business processes and operations from goal-setting to implementation.

We have structured it as a by-invitation, limited membership, “prepaid” consulting and coaching service which offers a combined total of (over) 5 hours to (over) 18 hours of consulting and coaching per month with fee ranges from $99 to $495 per month with added benefits of business networking, promotion and training, all with no contract.

Our mission is to help entrepreneurs, like yourself, be confident starting and running their business knowing they have professionals who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work side by side with them and encouraging them to accomplish their goals.”

For the full story goto Entrepreneurs Sounding Board

Posted via web from stevensreeves

Marketing Guru Howard Larson posted this article in the Front Office Box Forum.

“Trying to figure out what customer relationship management really is? Well you’re not alone. The term has been bounced around so much it remains a great source of confusion. And a popular business movement, now lost in a sea or wonderment.

What we are really talking about is building profitable customer relationships. From the days of the corner store, to the global enterprises of the future, the following 12 principles will remain the backbone of building a successful business. Each is both compelling on its own and intertwined with the others — there is no question, though, that customer relationship management as an integrated whole is greater than the sum of these parts.”

Read the rest of the article Here

Visit Howard’s blog at Larson Associates

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For the last six months I’ve been working my tail off trying to learn about Internet Marketing.

Just about everybody I’d talked to before left me with the feeling they didn’t understand what I was talking about.

Most of them claimed at least a passing knowledge of PPC and others even talked (vaguely) about blogging and inbound marketing.

But they didn’t bother to understand my problem.

We’re trying to innovate in every direction – the people we build software for, the software we build and how we build it, how we persuade people to use it and ultimately how we get to make money out of it.

They all wanted to shoe horn us into the CRM category and have us compete for PPC with salesforce and a bunch of other, old style, business models.

That wasn’t going to work for us.

Our business model is based on producing and marketing a category busting software as a service at the lowest possible cost, and finding ways to make money once we’ve done it.

If we can make it work we’ll completely change the way the software industry operates – not spending a fortune persuading people to pay money for it, but persuading them for nothing and making money because they use it.  A bit like Google with Search and Adwords, but without the advantages.

We developed a business process to suit our aims.

Instead of Market, Sell, Charge, Retain we chose Attract, Engage, Adopt, and Exploit.

Leaving Exploit aside (because we haven’t figured that out yet, we’re working on the Attract, Engage and Adopt flow.

Our miserly pilot of PPC was a complete disaster.  In some cases we were paying $200 for a registration from somebody who would never use the software.

That wasn’t going to work.

So we realized our critical measure would be Adoption and everything we did in the Attract and Engage phases had to be focused on supporting adoption.

From this it was easy to understand we needed to attract people with our ideas, not adverts.

That’s how we got to inbound marketing and it all makes sense.

This way we don’t have to compete in somebody else’s arbitrary category and against meaningless features.

Instead we can compete on the basis of our ideas, which levels the playing field.

I wouldn’t pretend to have figured out every angle but one thing is for sure.  All those businesses competing in the old way will run out of cash long before we do.

They might have the money, but we’ve got the ideas.

Strangely the more I understand about Internet Marketing the more I realize this has always been true.

If only I’d listened to the right people we’d have saved a lot of time and money.

Unfortunately I didn’t know how to find or recognize the right people back then

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Polish born director and producer Jedrzej studied film at Queen’s University and, upon graduation, began a successful career in Toronto’s and now LA’s film industries.  His most significant projects include directing the documentaries “Against The Odds” and “Monte Cassino”, feature film “Low Budget” and the TV series “Amazing Toronto Adventure”.Jedrzej has also worked as a cinematographer and producer on the show “Why Is It Sexy” (Discovery, Canal D), an editor on “Stupidity” (CBC, Documentary Channel) and on the feature film “The Long Weekend”. This varied experience has contributed to a solid understanding of all aspects of production, giving Jedrzej the ability to efficiently see a production through every step of the process.

To find out more visit Postcard Films